On the Internet, social networks allow users to connect to and share information with each other. Many social networks include a content sharing aspect that allows users to upload, view, and share content, such as video content, image content, audio content, and so on. Other users of the social network may comment on the shared content, discover new content, locate updates, share content, and otherwise interact with the provided content. The shared content may include content from professional content creators, e.g., movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as content from amateur content creators, e.g., video blogging and short original videos.
Content delivery on mobile devices is still a relatively new concept. For example, only recently has it been possible to play high-quality video on mobile devices, as this ability has been tied to the introduction of more-advanced telecommunication technologies. As such, most content sharing platforms are still in the early stages of building products for mobile devices.
Currently, options for content item players (e.g., a video player on a social network page or social network application on a mobile device) provided by content sharing platforms are limited and static. For example, content item players generally do not persist while the user is performing other activities, such as browsing. In addition, current content item players are generally static (e.g., cannot be re-sized). Instead, a user is forced to stop playback of the content item player to perform another activity (other than viewing playback of the content item on the content item player) and then return to the previous view to re-start the content item player. This can be disruptive and negatively affect the viewing user experience.